Adapted from previous research published in The Center of Mayan Time (1995), Izapa Cosmos (1996), Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (1998), and Galactic Alignment (2002). More detailed online version of this piece is at: http://alignment2012.com/Izapa.html

Diagram
1.The
monuments of the Izapan ballcourt (Group F), looking southeast to the rise
position of the December solstice sun.

1. Throne. Has solar god head emerging
from between legs on east face.Four short pedestal
legs. No carving on top, but might be eroded. Throne 1 in Group B has an
elaborate cross design on top. Thrones denote the cosmic center.

2. Ball and ring. Referential to ballgame.Analogous to nearby “sun between legs” of throne (the “seed
in cleft” image which is the hieroglyph for the ballgame).

3. Serpent head, upside down, probably had solar ball or sun-face
in its open mouth. These were sometimes used in ballcourts or on buildings as
corner markers. The sun-in-mouth image is analogous to the throne’s sun-head and
the ball-in-ring carvings.

All three of these symbol complexes relate to the same
archetypal image of the sun in “a cleft.” This could be a mouth, a goal-ring,
or a birth canal. The throne points down the lengthwise axis of the ballcourt
toward the sunrise position of the December solstice sun.

4. Six stone viewing seats. That the solstice sunrise
sightline was significant is strongly suggested by these council seats, which
afforded an elevated view of not only the ballfield, but the December solstice
sunrise. Anyone sitting on these seats would look over the following two
carvings (5 and 6) on the far eastern end of the ball court.

5. Stela 60. Depicts one of the Hero Twins
standing over a fallen Bird Deity. The carvings and orientation of Group
A indicate that this Bird Deity represents the Big Dipper to the north, rising
and falling over Tacana volcano. In the Maya Creation Myth, the Big Dipper is
Seven Macaw, the vain and false ruler of the previous World Age. The Hero Twins
facilitated his downfall so that their father, One Hunahpu (a SOLAR lord),
could be resurrected. Given the viewing orientation of the viewing seats and
anyone standing in front of Stela 60, we are justified in suspecting that the
solar rebirth will be found happening over the solstice horizon. And the
December solstice itself is the rebirth of the sun in
the annual cycle. But the Creation Myth, which is the subject of these
carvings, is concerned with the shifting of World Ages, implying we must be
sensitive to recognizing a much larger cycle of solar rebirth (a new “Sun” or
“Age”).

6. Ball and ring, in front of Stela 60. This, like the one
on the opposite end of the ball court, refers to the ballgame and the set of
“sun-in-cleft” references. In the predawn sky over the solstice horizon, a
cleft feature on the Milky Way would have been observed 2,100 years ago, during
Izapa’s heyday. This is the “Black Road”
or “Great Cleft” formed by interstellar dust in the region of the Milky Way’s
“nuclear bulge” or GalacticCenter.
This was known to the Maya as the Xibalba
be (the Road to the Underworld), which could also be portrayed as the mouth
of a jaguar or sky dragon (as on Izapa Stela 25). In ballgame symbolism, the
ballcourt was associated with the Milky Way and the goal-ring was associated
with the Great Cleft. Some 2,100 years ago, the solstice sun and the Great Cleft
were separated by about 30 degrees. Today, they have converged via the
precession of the equinoxes. In other words, the solstice sun and the Great
Cleft are joined in the years around 2012 AD.
The profound implications of this are the primary focus of my research.

7. Sky Lifter carving. Very eroded, but
identifiable via similar characteristics with a Sky Lifter carving found in the
nearby village of Tuxtla Chico. An Olmec Sky Lifter, recovered from the cone of San Martin
Volcano near the Gulf Coast, was interpreted as a being who lifts the Milky Way
into place as the Axis Mundi—a dawn-time Creation event. He holds a bar that he
turns upward, from horizontal to vertical. This suggests a movement of the
Milky Way. This carving was found in the middle of the south wall of the
ballcourt. Directly opposite, in the middle of the north wall, Stela 67 was
found.

8. Stela 67. Similar to Stelae 11 and 22.
Here, a solar lord sits in the middle of a cosmic canoe. Incised bones from
Tikal reveal that celestial canoes
represented the Milky Way. His outstetched arms indicate a “period ending”
event. He is probably the Hero Twins’ father, One Hunahpu, who is resurrected
at the end of the Age, after they defeat Seven Macaw and the Lords of the
Underworld. The sun located in the middle of the Milky Way canoe is compelling.
Combined with the emphasis on the solstice sun via the ballcourt’s orientation,
and other arguments omitted here, this solar deity (One Hunahpu) is probably
the December solstice sun lord. The seating declivity of canoes could easily
be seen to be analogous to the Great Cleft of the Milky Way, which shares
this astronomicalidentification with so many other mythological
adumbrations. In such a scenario it becomes difficult to avoid deducing that
the entire complex of carvings in the Izapan ballcourt express
the alignment of the solstice sun lord with the Great Cleft in the Milky Way.
Such a rare alignment occurs via precession, and it happens in the era of
the 13-baktun cycle’s ending date, December 21, 2012.

9. Stela 69. A carving fragmented in three parts. Enough is
left to notice the Seven Macaw Bird Deity, in a state of fleeing or flight
from two figures on the left, probably the Hero Twins. As with Stela 25, this
carving depicts some episode from the Hero Twin myth, perhaps the arm of Hunahpu
being torn off or Seven Macaw being shot at. At any
rate, Seven Macaw has not yet fallen, as on Stela 60. A person viewing Stela
69, which is above Stela 67 on the upper tier of the ballcourt, would look
to the north, where the Big Dipper rose and fell over Tacana volcano during
Izapa’s heyday. In confirmation that this northern sighting direction was
part of the ballcourt cosmogony, the pillar monument a dozen yards northwest
of the ballcourt faces Tacana volcano.

10. Inverted T-shape stone, in the middle of the south wall.
this inconspicuous stone is actually very revealing of how "the middle"
of the ballcourt was conceived. The stone is very much like the "container"
on Stela 14, (Group C) in which the Hero Twins are enwombed and over which
a jaguar-serpent arches. It is also one-half of a quadrated cartouche which
symbolizes the portal to the Otherworld (see discussion in part 2 below).
This inverted T-shape represents a vessel, a container, and a womb. A viewer
could watch the nuclear bulge of the Milky Way pass through the southern meridian
on certain nights. In fact, at certain times on certain nights, the Milky
Way stretches in a SE-NW orientation which mirrors the orientation of the
ballcourt itself.

* * *

This was a concise summary of the most important monuments
of the Izapa ballcourt. Much argument and citation has been left out, since
longer studies, including my monograph of 1996 and Part 4 in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (1998) have been
perhaps too long and detailed to allow for a quick grasp of the significance of
my thesis. Which is: The monuments in theIzapan ballcourt
encode a knowledge of the solstice-galaxy alignment of era-2012, and that
alignment was the intended target anchor for the end of the 13-baktun cycle and
thus the placement of the Long Count in real time.

I am very interested in having a dialogue with progressive
Mayan scholars on my reconstruction of Izapan cosmology, as
this synthesis of the accepted data is straightforward. The assemblage of
different lines of evidence, all converging on the same conclusion, seems
to me to eliminate coincidence as a viable alternate explanation for the integrative
continuity of these symbol complexes. Please share your thoughts.

Stela 22 was recently restored with a newly
found piece and redrawn by Ayax Moreno. Illustrations below are adapted from
Moreno's drawing of it in "Carved in Stone: The Cosmological Narratives
of Late Preclassic Izapan-Style Monuments From the Pacific Slope" by
Julia Guernsey Kappelman, in Heart of Creation: The Mesoamerican World
and the Legacy of Linda Schele (Ed. Andrea Stone, University of Alabama
Press, 2002).

Stela 22: A Tri-level Deity Paradigm.
by John Major Jenkins. May 2006

Stela 22 has an unusual history. It was found in a discarded
location in Group F, in the 1950s. A local person acquired it and recarved
the surfaces, to imaginatively deepen the design. The actual lines of the
authentic design were thereby obscured and mutilated. Today it stands at the
entrance to the Group F ballcourt, an abstract rendition of the original artifact.
Luckily, the carving had been photographed, so the original design, although
itself somewhat eroded, could be reconstructed. In addition, Kappelman (2002)
reported that Ayax Moreno found that a miscellaneous piece of a carving fit
the top portion of Stela 22, and he was thereby able to add new details to
the design. A photograph and a drawing of the restored virtual carving of
Stela 22 follow:

The upper portion shows the lower register of a sky
band, so we know that we have reached the upper limit of the carving, and
thus most of the design is preserved. Several significant things can be said.
First, the image is so closely similar to Stela 67, that we should suspect
that Stela 67 had iconographic motifs in the same locations of its lost sections.
Second, the restored Stela 22 contains three tiers or levels of action. This
three-level framework probably mimics the three levels of Izapan cosmography—ocean
to the south, the narrow plain of Soconusco in which Izapa itself is situated,
and mountains or volcanoes to the north. This division reflects the arrangement
of serpent deities and bird deities in Group A and elsewhere, associating
birds with the north and serpents or frogs with the south. I've pointed out
that this no doubt reflects the orientation of the three main monument groups
(A, B, and F) with three cosmic centers (Polar, Zenith, and Galactic). It
is therefore possible that Stela 22 preserves, in microcosm, the tripartite
cosmic-center paradigm of Izapan cosmology. With this in mind, let's highlight
the three levels of Stela 22.

Level 1 contains two fish swimming
in water, two masks on the far left and right sides, and a solar deity in
a canoe in the middle:

This much closely parallels what we also see on Stela
67. Kappelman points out that the masks here on Stela 22 are death heads (note
the white bone on cheek). The distinction then, between Stela 22 and Stela
67, is that one relates to the death or descent of the Maize God (who I emphasize
is a solar deity, the December solstice sun and One Hunahpu
in the Creation Myth) and the other relates to the birth or rebirth of the
Maize God / December solstice sun.

The second tier is clearly visible
on Stela 22, which we will see in the following two illustrations:

I chose to shade, on the left, what appears to be a
serpent headed rope that suspends the canoe over the waters. A parallel serpent
rope is on the right. The one I've shaded seems to tip a rectangular cartouche
upward. The cartouche is an inverted mirror of the canoe below, angled like
an opening mouth. The suggestion is that the two have been separated, revealing
the Solar Maize Deity. As Kappelman pointed out, joining the two halves creates
a familiar image of the four-sided underworld portal cartouche. It thus makes
sense that the Solar Maize Deity is dying or being reborn at the portal to
the underworld. Riding atop the upper half of the underworld cartouche, we
see a crouching jaguar. This being appears in at least two other contexts
on Izapan monuments. In one he rides in a sedan carried by two figures, possibly
the Hero Twins. This suggests he is an honored royal totem symbol. In another,
a jaguar is suspended from sky ropes, apparently being cooked or sacrificed
over a fire tended by two figures below. This isn't really surprising, because
deity sacrifice was a central feature of Mesoamerican religion.

The jaguar here on Stela 22 occupies the middle tier.
Since the upper and lower tiers are associated with the south and north (with
the galactic and polar centers), it is tempting to equate the jaguar with
the zenith symbology so evident in Group B. The reasons why the jaguar would
be associated with the zenith, as well as the Pleiades that cross the zenith
on certain days and in the New Fire ceremony, are unclear. Perhaps the jaguar
was important because he combined solar and Pleiadian symbolism, since spotted
jaguar pelts were identified by Schlak as symbols of the Pleiades, and jaguars
were also seen as solar animals. [Schlak, "Jaguar and Serpent Foot: Iconography
as Astronomy, in Word and Image in Maya Culture, ed. Hanks and Rice,
University of Utah Press, 1989: 265.]

Mouths of jaguars were seen
as portals to the underworld, and the underworld was accessed at the cosmic
crossroads.

Still on Level 2, the anthropomorphized figures holding
the serpent-head ropes may be possums:

Possums were year-bearer symbols in the Classic Period.
They seem to have speech or song scrolls emitting from their mouths. They
both have long tails. The one on the right seems to hold the rectangular underworld
portal cartouche. In some way they may be standard bearers. At any rate they
belong with the jaguar on Level 2. Kappelman demonstrated that the Maize God
on Level 1 was enthroned; I suggest that the crouching jaguar is also enthroned.
In fact, with the bird deitiy at the third level, three levels of enthronement
are probably suggested here, reinforcing my thesis that Izapan cosmography
is basically tripartite in nature, with reference to three cosmic centers
and their three enthroned deities.

Level 3 of Stela 22 shows the
sky dragon, or the so-named Principal Bird Deity that is most likely referential
to Seven Macaw in the Creation Myth (the Big Dipper in the circumpolar northern
sky):

Each of the three levels on Stela 22 has two attendants
flanking the central figure. The symbolic intention is probably very similar
to the three levels of enthroned deities or rulers depicted on the near-contemporary
Kaminaljuyu monument 65:

(drawing by the author, from Maya Cosmogenesis 2012,
1998: 252)

I believe that the three main monument groups of Izapa
provide a tripartite template for understanding the manifestation of triad
deity relations in later Classic Period Maya sites, including Palenque. In
understanding the astronomical basis of these deities, and the variations
in solar and stellar phenomena that happen seasonally in relation to the polar,
zenith, and galactic centers, we may be able to understand the often conflicting
and confusing attributes of the Triad Gods.

So, the recent restoration
of Stela 22 opens up some interesting considerations and provides a lot to
talk about.

Update, January 2007. I've discovered
an old essay by Susannah Ekholm regarding an amazing tri-leg figure found in
Mound 30a just west of the ballcourt. Based on her likely reconstruction of
the figure, we have yet another confirmation that some kind of trinary concept
was utilized, or known, at Izapa. This has meaning in terms of the three primary
monument groups at Izapa being referential to the three cosmic centers and three
deity-avatars, and also relates to the three levels of Stela 22 discussed above.
See my essay on this figurine here: http://Alignment2012.com/izapa-trinary-figure.html